Healthcare Research

KEY FINDING: Early research highlighted the negative impact of caregiving on caregiver wellbeing, including depression and anxiety, while more recent studies also identified positive outcomes such as happiness and resiliency.

KEY FINDING: Over half (53%) of patients were injured within 60 minutes of a SCIU, but only 28.6% were directly transferred.

KEY FINDING: Surveillance of CAUTI is challenging in the SCI population because the ability to detect symptoms typically used to diagnose CAUTI, such as suprapubic pain and dysuria, is often impaired.

KEY FINDING: The Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry (RHSCIR) collects data on individuals with SCI to answer research questions, facilitate implementation of best practices, and link stakeholders.

KEY FINDING: Respiratory diseases, especially pneumonia, are a leading cause of death after SCI and a frequent reason for rehospitalization.

KEY FINDING: Serious thoracic AE including permanent neurological deficit and death have been reported following SMT, even though causality cannot be confirmed.

KEY FINDING: Preventive care is generally provided by general primary care providers, but not all primary care providers are trained in recognizing and addressing spinal cord injury-specific needs.

KEY FINDING: Vitamin D testing on admission decreased by 97% after the interventions.

KEY FINDING: The optimal case identification algorithm used free-text keyword searches and a physician billing code, and had 70.6% sensitivity (61.9–78.4), 98.5% specificity (97.3–99.3), 89.9% PPV (82.2–95.0), 94.7% NPV (92.8–96.3), and an F-score of 79.1.

KEY FINDING: Individuals with SCI may not receive the same preventive healthcare as the general population due to various barriers, including inaccessibility, lack of PCP knowledge, and systematic issues.